Canada’s Nobel Peace Prize for Vietnam

Three years ago I wrote “(Canada’s Remembrance Day 2005)” in which I mentioned Canadian military forces serving in Vietnam during the Vietnam War era and the Nobel Peace Prize they were awarded for their service. I never realized the rancor that revelation would come to garner. It began when I was called a LIAR by a Canadian commenter to my own blog:

“The Canadian Armed Forces won a Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts in Vietnam.” What year was that? I used Google to save myself from Liberal bias, and discovered that this was a total blatant lie. (October 12, 2006)

To this day I am still being called a “LIAR” for writing facts that I found from my own research.

Political Forum Commenter: “but here is a link to the list of nobel peace prize winners. So far I do not see the Canadians on the list which leads me to believe that this blogger is a liar. They could have only made that up so if they made that up God knows what else.Winners of the Nobel Peace Prize“

Apparently, for Canadians, the truth hurts. For Canada’s military to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for its war efforts is so discomforting to many Canadians that they refuse to believe the facts, and instead, label innocent researchers, such as myself, as LIARS! In 2005, Kerfuffles wrote in “Canada’s Remembrance Day 2005:”

In 1973, the International Commission of Control and Supervision Vietnam (ICCS) was responsible for securing the armistice that lasted two years from 1973 to 1975, known as Operation Gallant. Canada, a member of the commission, contributed Canadian Forces whose role was to monitor the cease-fire in South Vietnam, according to the Paris Peace Conference, and to arrange the release and exchange of more than 32,000 prisoners of war. **The Canadian Armed Forces won a Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts in Vietnam.

**The Nobel Peace Prize referenced was awarded in 1988, when United Nations Peace-Keeping Forces were awarded THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE for all peace-keeping duties up to December 1988.

In 1988, the Nobel Committee recognized the good work that UN Peacekeepers had accomplished by awarding them the Nobel Peace Prize. The prize was awarded for United Nations-service/Korea service up until 10 December 1988, when the Nobel Peace Prize Award was granted. Therefore, these UN Peacekeepers included the Canadian peacekeeping troops of Operation Gallant, 1973, the military operation associated with the International Commission of Control and Supervision(ICCS) Vietnam whose role it was to monitor the cease-fire in South Vietnam as per the Paris Peace Accords.

Even though it offends the “peace-loving” sensitivities of many Canadians, I stand by my statement: “The Canadian Armed Forces won a Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts in Vietnam.” My information came from Canada’s own Canadian Veterans Affairs and Canada’s own Canadian Parliament.

Canadian Parliament, 12 March 1997
Mr. Jack Frazer: I think you will all have received a letter from the Canadian Peacekeeping Veterans Association. In it, in the fourth paragraph, they point out that Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar said in 1988, when announcing the award:

This Nobel Peace Prize is to be shared by every member of the UN Peacekeeping Force since its inception. That meant that Nobel Peace Prize was shared equally amongst the people who qualified for it at that time.

The Government of Canada has built a peacekeeping monument here in Ottawa, but there is no way for any individual, regardless of what medals he is wearing, to indicate he or she was a valid recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize when it was given to the then peacekeepers. That is what the people in the Peacekeeping Veterans Association are keen to have: recognition that they were part of the peacekeepers who won that recognition for Canada. It could be said that others since that time have done basically the same thing, but the truth is, of course, that the Nobel Peace Prize has not been awarded since 1988, so the people before that time do qualify, the ones post that time do not qualify.

My question for Canadians is why do you diminish the sacrifice and service of your own country’s military forces just because they happened to do their peacekeeping service in Vietnam?

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 18th, 2008 at 8:17 am and is filed under Canada, Vietnam, war. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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2005 to date, by Kerfuffles.
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